penumbra

Actually, you only need two, but there are pretty tight rules about the patients condition, prognosis, etc, and there is a mandatory waiting period between the time the patient requests and the doctor prescribes. Check out: http://www.religioustolerance.org/euth_us1.htm

My mother-in-law had completed the paperwork and was in the middle of the waiting period (terminal cancer) when she had a stroke. She refused any and all treatment except pain-killers and passed away 2 days later.

Bottom line is that the doctors aren't "prescribing" death. They are only assisting in fulfilling the wishes of the patient, and even then under only very certain circumstances. The safeguards against abuse are numerous and effective, imho.

dk

Is that the truth, cross your heart hope to die. In 5 years I don't think 150 patents in Oregon have been put to death under suicide laws. If this proves anything, its that people in Oregon have had little use for suicide laws. Putting a good person to death proves nothing to anybody, because dead people never argue.

I read an article a few years ago. An emergency room misdiagnosed a 10 year old boy with a concussion, and sent the kid home. 4 hours later the parents brought the kid back, in a comma. The doctors (actually head bureacrat) just let the kid die for quality of life reasons. We have to wonder if the liability of the hospital for a handicapped 10 year old boy became a death sentence. The death of the boy cost the hospital a few $million, but a live handicapped kid could have cost the hospital $100s of millions.

The notion of empowering doctors or hospitals to cure people by putting them to death is flawed. The first duty of a doctor is to the health of the patient, and the second is to do no harm.

Godless Dave

Seems more like it proves that your fears of abuse by doctors are unfounded.

BioBeing

One unsupported anecdotal story does not evidence make. Do you have a link to that article? Of course, the full medical transcript would be better, then we might actually know what really went on.

Is the Doctor not doing harm by needlessly prolonging the suffering of the patient?

Also, by following your argument, then Doctors should ignore do not ressucitate (DNR) orders - instructions prepared by patients saying that Drs should not artificially prolong the life of the patient if there is no hope for a cure. They should put everybody on life support regardless of the wishes of the patient, because they first have to save lives.

Let the patient chose.

keyser_soze

But only if you're using your BRAIN, instead of the good book.

penumbra

Let's get this straight -it is NOT about "empowering doctors" - it's about empowering individuals with the right to choose.

Dr Rick

Withholding feeding (as proposed by this poor lady's doc) is not treatment; it's withholding treatment, and it is neither odd nor uncommon. People in the US can order that no such intervention be performed with a Living Will

There are discernably different types of suffering; for instance, the suffering of a depressive is quite different from the suffering of a terminal cancer patient who has unbearable pain that he knows can only end with death.

That's becuase you don't know what you are talking about. You haven't ever had to manage the complications that can accompany artificial feeding, you haven't tried to manage the agony that can come with metastatic cancer that even high doses of opiates may not relieve, and you haven't recently seen the tab that goes with it all. There are effective interventions for many end-of-life issues, but there is no panacea, and they don't all work for everyone, and they are hardly a bargain.

You are misrepresenting the literature and drawing fallacious inferences; that pain is often inadequately treated does not mean that we can adequately treat all pain.

For your safety, and the safety of those around you, please turn-off all irony meters; thank-you:



You may resume normal irony detection modes. Had the poster actually had anything of value to contribute, you would have been informed by the proper authorities. Thank-you, again

There are many issues and problems with pain mangement, and undertreatment is just one of them. Pain management is a complex field, a subspecialty in itself, and when it comes to cancer pain, neither easy nor 100% effective.

Ohhhh, so your an expert in oncology and analgesic modalities, afterall; Gosh, why didn't you just say so in the first place...

By the way, but only if you want, feel free to start a new thread on the ethical and licensing issues, and the potential detriment to quality of care that may accompany managing the serious illnesses of one's relatives

Folks, for your safety: given the historical unpredictability of when we're going to encounter more of the same drivel, let's keep both the irony and the BS meters off or in stand-by mode for the remainder of the thread. Thanks, again

A physicians first duty is to do no harm. Prolonging agony and/or violating a person's wishes is not somthing we are sworn to do..

Folks, he's off-topic and irrelevant, but try to keep the laughter to a minimum; and please, no flash pictures.

dk

Really, doctors pay somewhere around $100,000/year for malpractice insurance.

• If doctors get their money’s worth that’s a lot of malpractice, or
• If doctors are systematically played a patsy by an unscrupulous tort system then they are justified to feel grievously wronged and angry.

This shows my fears are founded firmly in the human capacity for injustice, from which the medical profession has no immunity.

dk

You have the power to kill yourself on a whim. Death is not a medical procedure, doctors aren't onipotent, and putting another human being to death isn't pro-choice except in a culture of death. A culture of death solves problems by killing people with abject apathy.

Your regression into pro-choice rheteric reveals a pro death perspective. In an upside down world pro-choice means a right to kill the unborn, and exterminate the old and infirm. You're not ttaking a stance on rights, freedom or choices, you believe death solves problems.

Dr Rick

Ignoring for the moment that this post was just a series of unrelated non sequiturs that were completely off-topic:

Since doctors outside the US don't pay anywhere near what US physicians pay for malpractice, is it okay with you if non-American physicians withdraw treatment from the terminally-ill?